Awakened
by Erudito
Summary: A teenager wakes up in the middle of a forest, unable to remember anything and with nothing linking him to his past. Rebuilding a new identity, piece by piece and with no instruction book, will this new chance awaken Ash's potential or destroy him? Set in the Kalos region after the Diamond and Pearl series. Features a competent Ash.


Chapter One

He had been sleeping.

He woke gradually, consciousness filtering in as he became aware he was sitting against the scratchy bark of a tree. His eyes opened and he stared at the unfamiliar surroundings. He was in a thick forest, tangles of bramble bushes and clumps of honeysuckle in his immediate view. The dim sunlight of early autumn shone down through the leaves above, illuminating the forest floor in uneven patches.

Groggily, he stood up and dusted himself off, only then fully realizing he had been sleeping in the woods. Why, he wondered, had he chosen to do that? He frowned.

He racked his brain, trying to find some memory of the events before he had woken up. But there was no memory there. Nothing but blankness that defied all his efforts to pierce it.

As he stood there puzzling his situation, a bristly creature with zigzag-patterned fur nosed its way through the brambles. Shoving his confusion aside, he took a step backwards – bumping into the tree in the process – and eyed the creature. It was sniffing the ground and ambled past him without a glance in his direction.

At least someone knew what they were doing.

A minute after the creature had left, the teenager gingerly began to pick his way through the underbrush, using the trail the creature had left. First order of business was to find a way out of this leafy maze.

Everything else could be dealt with later.

* * *

Steven was close to nodding off when the kid stumbled in front of his car.

"Shit!" he said, slamming on the brakes, all traces of weariness gone from his system. His car bumped and skidded to a stop, dust billowing up from beneath its tires. He was suddenly glad he wasn't on a highway.

The kid had come to a still in front of his car. He was wearing a dazed expression, not at all dissimilar to that of a Stantler in the headlights. Steven noted the various twigs and leaves sticking to his jacket and hair and briefly wondered what the kid was doing all the way out here before jumping out of his car.

"Hey," he said. He slammed his car door and made his way to the kid. "Are you all right?"

"You didn't hit me."

Steven grimaced at the sound of wonder in the kid's voice. "Yeah, sorry about that. I should be more alert when driving." He stuck his hand out to the kid, who looked scruffy and small up close. "I'm Steven Stone."

After a moment's hesitation, the younger of the two accepted the handshake. He felt the pressure to respond, but his own name was not forthcoming. Silence reigned for the seconds following the handshake. He shifted and stared at his feet.

"I don't . . ." He stopped himself. "I can't tell you my name."

"Oh."

He felt Steven's gaze on him. And then: "Can you tell me why not?"

"I don't remember; I don't even know where I am." His words came out into a rush, and he suddenly found himself pouring out everything to a virtual stranger. "I woke up earlier today against a tree and couldn't remember anything from before that and then this _creature_ came by and I didn't know what it was but I decided to head in the general direction it went. I walked around for hours but there were still only trees and I was getting desperate so I started running and then I found a break in the trees and it turned out to be this road. I saw your car too late and couldn't stop myself from stumbling out into the road in time.

". . . And yeah. That's everything," he finished. He looked up at Steven with a burning face. Jeez, that was pathetic.

Steven had been listening intently the entire time, the worry lines becoming more visible on his face the longer the kid continued. The kid's description of his memory loss certainly made it sound like a case of amnesia, but if it was it would be unlike any variant Steven had heard of.

He reflexively straightened his tie, a nervous habit his father always scolded him about, even in his old age.

"I can't say I know what's going on myself, but I can give you a ride to the nearest town. I'm sure a doctor there would know something."

"Yeah. That would be good." The younger of the two offered Steven a tired smile, all the tension draining out of him. "Honestly, I'm looking forward to lying on something other than rocks and trees after hiking all day."

"Well, the ride should take a few hours, so I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to do that."

The kid yawned and stretched as he followed Steven to the car. Steven watched him settle into the back seat before getting in the car himself and starting the ignition.

It must have been a long day for the kid, he reflected as he turned the car around. Longer than his, and he had driven all the way from the Hoenn region – a distance that was roughly nine hours at this point – in an attempt to reach a cave he had heard about. And now it was looking like he wouldn't be getting to that cave at all. Funny how things worked out.

"Hey, kid," he said as a thought occurred to him. He waited for a moment, but there was no response, prompting him to glance at the back seat. The kid was fast asleep, slumped against the window.

Guess it would have to wait.

* * *

It was hours later, as they rolled into town, that he woke up. He opened his eyes almost instantly, feeling the car lurch around a turn.

"You're not a very good driver," he muttered.

"Good to have you back," Steven said.

The teenager straightened up and looked out the window. Nighttime had set in; there was a darkness that obscured all but the faint outlines of the houses they drove past. He turned around in his seat and looked through the back window, beyond the washed-out red of the taillights and down the road disappearing into the darkness behind them. In the distance he could see the fluorescent lights of a gas station and some cement buildings.

"Are we going to find a doctor at this hour of night?"

Steven made a right turn and they passed some more houses, these ones less rundown from what the younger of the two could tell. "There's a hospital in this town. It's open 24/7." He paused for a moment. "Listen, I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Go for it."

"Could you give me a name to use when referring to you? I've dubbed you 'the kid' in my head and I doubt you'd appreciate that."

"Yeah, I don't really." He frowned. "What name would you like to use?"

"Oh, come on. I don't want to be the one to make a decision of that magnitude."

"It's just a name. Maybe a temporary one."

"Maybe a permanent one," Steven countered. Almost immediately after the words had left his mouth, he cringed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you – "

"It's fine." He fixed his gaze on the houses rolling by out the window, not really seeing them. "This is all I really know, anyway. I don't feel any loss because I don't know what I'm missing in the first place."

"Very astute."

"Have any suggestions? For a name, I mean."

He noticed Steven briefly look at him through the back seat mirror. "Finn?" he tried.

He grimaced. "Got any other suggestions?"

"Tobias, Ricardo?"

"You don't seriously think I look like a Ricardo, do you?" He had seen reflections of himself, both in the car window and in the side view mirror before he had drifted off.

He heard Steven chuckle. "How about Aaron?"

He leaned back into his seat and smiled faintly. "Yeah. Yeah, that could work."

A comfortable quiet fell over them until they pulled into the parking lot of an ivy-clad brick building. The words "Arbour Medical Center" were printed above its entrance.

* * *

**Well, that's a wrap. Expect updates to be slow; school's starting up again and I have multiple projects with deadlines fast approaching. It doesn't help that I'm a slow writer either.  
**

**On a different note, please review. Suggestions, questions, like people all reviews are created equal (in my mind at least) and I enjoy seeing them.  
**


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